Under Water
by static-disturbed
Summary: He wasn’t always bad; he used to be somebody’s baby too. Kevin Daniel Volchok, 7lbs and 3 ounces; his mom always said the nurses all went crazy over his blue eyes.


**Title:** Under Water.

**Rating:** Some language and drug references, so use your own judgment.

**Summary/AN:** One-shot look at Kevin Volchok, maybe where he came from and how his life came to be what it was. I love inventing backstory ;)

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He wasn't always bad; he used to be somebody's baby too. Kevin Daniel Volchok, 7lbs and 3 ounces; his mom always said the nurses all went crazy over his blue eyes.

_"Hands down my kid was the best looking one in that whole damn nursery."_

She was only sixteen when he came screaming into the world. His father wasn't even a name whispered when he wasn't in the room; his father was nothing at all. But he never cared, she was enough. She had a lot of plans, the kind that always sounded good and exciting but never really panned out. That didn't matter, because she was there. She was there to tuck him in, even if it was into the sleeper sofa in his Aunt Deidra's living room. She was always in the stands, the one and only season he ever played little league baseball. She was the one who brought him to the beach, the one to tell him he could tackle the whole ocean if he tried hard enough.

He loved her hard like all kids do their mothers. But when you're nine you don't notice things like track marks. You chose to believe your mother is unique and adventurous, not stoned. And then one day you find her with a needle all stuck up in her arm, cold skin under your hands and her eyes unfocused. And then you get it; you stop being a little kid and learn to grow the fuck up.

He did, he grew up fast. Aunts and uncles passed him around like a family heirloom that you can't throw away but don't really want sitting in your living room either. He wasn't even bad, mostly just quiet. When he was twelve and his grandfather started having to breathe through an oxygen mask everyone figured it would be a good idea for him to go live with the dying old man, keep an eye on him. They got to kill two birds with one stone; sticking the two people they cared about least together and seeing if they made it.

His grand father wasn't much for talking, but the kid up the street was. Chili was annoying most of the time, a couple years younger with a mouth that never stopped moving, but sometimes it was ok just to sit and listen to him ramble, better than silence. Chili was always with Johnny Harper. Harper liked the ocean too.

They started waking up at 6am to do battle with the Pacific, surfboards strapped across their bodies like shields as they dove into the chaotic waters.

He loved the ocean. It was rough with him, completely unforgiving as it tossed his body from his board, leaving him with salt water burning in his nostrils. He always went back begging for more. And eventually, he learned to tackle it.

He loved the sometimes too long seconds when he got pulled under after a wipe out and for one solitary moment all he could hear was the blood pumping in his ears. Going out like that, letting the ocean swallow him, wouldn't have been so bad.

Those moments never lasted though, so he figured out other ways to capture the feeling. As soon as Chili was fifteen his parents started going away and leaving him at the house. They always had beer. Beer was enough for his friends, drunk and awkward on weekends like all teenagers. But he needed more, and like all kids who go out looking for trouble, he found it.

School stopped mattering a year shy of graduation; he'd never been very good at it anyway, not since elementary school. Johnny and Chili stopped coming by his house in the morning. And then his grandfather died, a second body for him to find when he still had sleep in his eyes. Nobody bothered to argue or look for him when he packed a bag after the funeral and took off.

Selling was easy and the money was ok. He got all the free shit he could ask for. Whenever he wanted, with the right product, he could be under water, no noise besides the blood pumping in his ears.

And then the sponsorship came up. And for the fist time since he was a little boy he wanted something, something besides a girl or a drug to forget in. But he didn't get it; Johnny got it. Everyone acted like Harper had it so rough. Johnny had a mom that loved him, the kind of mom that still poured his cereal in the morning and sat up waiting for him to come home on Saturday nights. He had a house and relatives that didn't look like they were going to be sick when they saw his face. Johnny didn't even know what rough was. But it didn't matter, because he had the sponsorship, the ticket to something better and Kevin was stuck in shit. He was stuck working construction and slinging dope to afford an apartment that was always full of people he barely knew.

And then Johnny was dead. Johnny was dead and it didn't matter about the sponsorship because all he could think about was how he used to ride on the kid's back pegs to the beach every morning and they used to go into battle, side by side.

Marissa was some kind of weird silver lining in the midst of it all. At first he'd dismissed her. Hot, yes. But she was just a rich girl looking to get her hands dirty, piss off her mother. Except there was something different in her eyes, she was broken and fucked up. She didn't fit anywhere, certainly not with him but not with them either. She slept on his dirty mattress and rolled joints with her delicate fingers and he wanted to kick her out, just because she didn't belong there in his mess. But he didn't because he didn't want her gone, as bad as it was it was better when she was there.

Sometimes when she was there, when it was just them in the morning and he wasn't stoned they would actually talk. They'd eat cereal or cold pizza and she'd tell him about her crazy mom and her embezzling father. She'd lean her chin on her tiny palm and stare at him

"_So what do you like, I mean besides sex, surfing and getting high? Where did you come from, where are your family?"_

He never told her much; just that everyone was always dying.

He never treated her the way he could have, the way he should have. He wanted to tell her she was beautiful every time he saw her but he never did. He wanted to watch her stupid musical and dance with her at her stupid prom because it would have made her smile. But he couldn't, because all of that was above the surface and he'd grown accustomed to holding his breath under water.

Her friends and her mother were always looking for her, always wanting her back. Ryan was always trying to save her like some fucking super hero. Ryan really pissed him off; the kid had white trash written all over his face despite his Range Rover and his expensive jeans. Who was he to judge them, to decide who was bad and who was good? It didn't matter, he fucked up and she went back to her mother and her friends and her Ryan.

He got high and drunk and he couldn't close his eyes without seeing her smile or hearing Harper laugh or feeling his mother's cold skin under his hands.

And then it all ended in fire and death in his rear view mirror.

He wanted the ocean to swallow him; he wanted the pressure on his skull until he stopped hurting. It never came though, so he ran. He kept picturing her mother's face when she found out her baby was gone. He knew what they'd think about him. He was a monster and they'd never even know that he'd been someone's baby once too.


End file.
